Coconut Shell Pellet Activated Carbon

Same raw material, different shape, different trade-off. Granular carbon gives the fastest kinetics per kilogram and drops straight into circuits designed around mesh sizes — our coconut shell granular activated carbon page covers that form. A pellet bed gives a lower and more predictable pressure drop, generates almost no fines, and loads evenly, which is why tall gas columns and clear-liquid columns favour it. If your circuit is built around screens and mesh sizing, stay granular. If pressure drop or dust is your constraint, the pellet wins.

A binder — and this is the part most product pages skip. Coconut shell char is a powder with no plasticity of its own, so it cannot be extruded plain. Milled char is blended with a binder, most commonly coal-tar pitch, then extruded, carbonised and steam activated, which turns the binder into part of the pore structure. Three things follow: the binder raises the ash content above the raw material’s own, it contributes its own pore system, and for tobacco, respirator or food-adjacent use it becomes a contact material. Ask which binder is used, at what addition rate, and for a PAH test report wherever the carbon touches product.

For a gas-phase bed, CTC activity (ASTM D3467) tracks service life far better than iodine, because it measures working capacity on an organic vapour. Iodine 900–1,200 mg/g is table stakes for coconut carbon — nearly every supplier clears it — while CTC across the market runs anywhere from 50% to 90% at the same iodine number. If bed life is what you are buying, ask for CTC, or butane working capacity by ASTM D5228 where the duty is light organic vapour.

Pressure drop falls roughly with the square of the diameter: halve the diameter and the pressure drop multiplies about four times. Φ4 mm is the default for deep gas beds, Φ3 mm where kinetics are tight and the bed is shallow, and Φ1.5–2 mm for short-contact polishing duty. Order the largest diameter your contact time allows.

Three cases. When ash matters: coconut runs 2–5% against coal’s 8–15%, and ash is inert weight plus a contamination source in product-adjacent duty. When the carbon must survive many regeneration cycles: higher hardness means fewer fines and slower capacity loss. And when the media touches product — filters, respirators, tobacco. For bulk VOC abatement where none of those apply, a coal based pellet activated carbon does the same job for less money, and we will say so.

Yes — 1–2 kg samples go out free of charge, you cover the courier. Trial orders start from 500 kg to 1 t depending on the grade. Standard export packing is 25 kg bags or 500 kg bulk bags. Every lot ships with a certificate of analysis covering the values in the table above, and samples are retained for the contract period.